What is expected to be Europe’s largest community battery is set to be installed at an innovative regeneration scheme in Nottingham, with a 2MWh Tesla battery to be deployed in September as part of a housing scheme alongside community solar.
The £100 million Trent Basin project is a new housing development built at the site of an inland dock previously derelict for around two decades. It is expected to deliver 500 homes over five phases with 375kW of rooftop and ground mounted solar and the Tesla battery to be installed by EvoEnergy.
Representatives of the energy consortium behind Trent Basin gather to mark the launch of the pilot scheme. Image: Blueprint
In an innovative use of the solar farm, planning permission has been granted on the basis that the site shall be cleared by 28 February 2020. By this time, the panels from the ground mounted installation will be removed and installed on new homes built as part of the development.
With the addition of the battery storage facility and ground source heat pumps which will also be used on site, Trent Basin is intended to provide a new way to use renewable energy sources by generating, storing and distributing all at a neighbourhood level. A local energy company, Trent Basin ESCO, has already been set up to facilitate the local energy services.
According to project lead Blueprint, the battery will store energy from the local renewable generation to be used on site while also performing grid arbitrage and smoothing out the peaks and troughs of supply and demand.
Read more: Solar Power Portal